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Twitter, the Coup in Social Media that Is Past Due

In all the buzz over new media, social media, Web 2.0 (fill in the buzz words), there is something that has been really lacking. Sure the various social services out there make a valid attempt at addressing real-time interaction, but the strength of IM has remained the strength of IM – instantaneous.

Recently, the most simplistic, yet so powerful service, Twitter emerged on the scene with one purpose. It’s not to make business connections. It’s not to find like minded companions or to reconnect friends of interest. No, the service is designed with one goal in mind and that is to tell the world “what I’m doing right now”.

If you’re like me, you thought, nifty but useless. Like 43things. Nifty. Totally useless. Especially for business.

However, I’ve been paying attention to Scoble as he has been using Twitter for some time now. He has posted some very entertaining things about it, but in the end my verdict has always been: Nifty, yet useless.

Then someone posted yesterday, I thought it was Scoble, and commented that he uses Twitter because it gives him an eye inside the mind of early adopters. Now that is useful. So I set up my account and to be honest, it’s addicting.

Yes, on the surface it is posting about what I’m doing right now. However, Twitter has provided a number of useful public-facing methods that allow Twitter’rs to engage in the service using Instant Message (AIM, Gtalk, .Mac, Livejournal or the open Jabber protocol) as well as via text messaging from your phone. And with an open API, I’m even able to engage the system using any number of tools such as TwitterPost.

Now suddenly, the social networking paradigm has become instantaneous in a way that other services haven’t.

Already this morning, a number of the people I have chosen to follow (they may not even know – the service is that passive and non-invasive) are carrying on a variety of conversations on a level I’ve not seen in simple IM, nor on social networking sites.

And of course, there is a whole Twitter Optimization (like Search Engine Optimization) that can be used to drive traffic and promote stories. I expect sooner or later, we’ll start seeing spam.

Twitter me This, Twitter me that. Do you Twitter? If you do, feel free to add me as a friend, and I’ll return the favor.

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D’Arcy had already talked about it but I decided to have a go when I saw your IM status change to your twitter URL.

It is fun, particularly with Twitterific, but I think I might have to turn it off. Too darn distracting!

http://technosailor.com Aaron Brazell

Good luck escapin’ the net, Chris. :-)

Carol

I signed up and I don’t get it. Can someone please explain this to me?

Sigh…

http://www.freshyields.com Steve James

Damn you, you have my wife addicted to twitter now. Please don’t tell her about skype! She’s already demanding her own laptop and blackberry.

http://www.technosailor.com/the-technosailor/ Aaron Brazell

@SteveJames (like the reference to Twitter in that? :p): No problem. No Skype. :)

http://thefightspot.com Shawn Blanc

I was in the same boat as you, but I’ve read so many rave reviews on it that I’m about to sign up.

Another thing I now look for and enjoy is a bloggers twitter stats on their homepage.

http://blog.michaeljosh.com Michael Josh

I’ve been twitterring for the past two months and must say its addicting, got a couple of friends into the fold who are voracious at it worse than me.

I on the other hand found it handy when I wanted to update a couple of friends about a dental operation I was having recently. One SMS to the Twitter number and mass updates were sent…up until I got my anesthesia shots.

http://justagirlintheworld.com Lisa

i twittered you

http://www.technosailor.com/the-technosailor/ Aaron Brazell

Twittered you back!

http://www.ritawilhelm.com Rita Wilhelm

I’ve just started twittering myself… and agree with you. It’s rather addicting. Went to see if Guy Kawasaki was twittering, and indeed he was. I chose to follow him, and low and behold… he is now following me! ( Of course, I’m one of 9800 people he is currently following). Still interesting that he has chosen to follow just about everyone who is following him. For what purpose? Who knows.

Well.. back to twittering. :-) I’m going to follow you now! (Kind of scary eh?) lol

Aaron Brazell

My name is Aaron Brazell and I am the author of the WordPress Bible. I have been building WordPress solutions for over ten years for clients large and small. I have also been a core contributor. I live in Baltimore with my dog, though I (and he) claims Austin as home.